


Buttercup

by mmmdraco



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Gen, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-26
Updated: 2012-07-26
Packaged: 2017-11-10 18:35:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/469388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmmdraco/pseuds/mmmdraco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bombs and buttercups.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Buttercup

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the characters, I mean no harm, I have no money... Stuff like that. Yeah. 
> 
> "Build Me Up (Buttercup)" is by The Foundations.

She held a buttercup in her hands when we first met. A tiny yellow flower with a tender, green protruding stem. But, the thing about buttercups is that they do not last long. Buttercups wilt like spinach in water too hot for close comfort, but they do so no matter the environment. I remember the buttercup she held in her hands and the way she smiled when she placed it in mine. Just a quirk at each corner of her mouth; her eyes held most of the smile, much like a drinking glass that was overfilled by just a few drops, those trickling down to pool below. Her smile was an overfilled drinking glass. 

Buttercups stain your hands if you do not treat them with care, for they are delicate objects worthy of love, and a soft touch. They are the mark of a gentle soul when they may leave your hands untarnished. Her buttercup, my buttercup, did not wilt until it left the pads of her fingers and crushed itself into my rough palm. I see the traces of the lovely yellow petals etched upon my fingertips forever. 

I am a terrorist, but she made me a poet. I gave my body and freedom to an organization aimed at changing the world around me, but on an excursion to fulfill my duty, we met over buttercups. With that soft drop of that small flower from that small hand, she had my mind to do with as she would. She did not do much, but she made important changes. 

Bombs and buttercups. Bombs are for destruction. Buttercups are easily destroyed. The day we met, later on in the evening, I set aside my wilting buttercup to set a bomb in a building for causes that I was now questioning my belief in. I picked up my buttercup and walked away. 

Destruction is never an easy thing, so people try not to watch. Yet, there is a fascination in destruction that makes us heady when we catch a glimpse of demolition and cannot bear to turn our heads unless we can still lock our eyes with the image. I do not deny my human nature, and so I watched my work go up in flames. And then I watched my world follow. 

I had watched her as she waved goodbye and walked down a small path to a small building not too entirely far from where I was set to bomb. Yet, she was far enough away, or so I thought. I watched as a building exploded in front of my eyes, and watched as the rubble set on top of the building into which she had gone. Destruction makes us heady. I felt the buttercup in my hands taint my fingers yellow, but when I looked, the yellow turned red. 

Blood streaked my hands; red fingerprints. Sticky and flower-scented. Pistol, stamen, petal, stem. I wore a flower in remembrance in the color that filled my mind. Buttercups are sneaky things; they bleed when you least expect them to. 

She had a dog who followed her, and led her to me. Hours later, when I could finally get to her building in all that it was too hot for close comfort, I wilted like buttercups as I stood a body so broken, burred and bloodstained that I could not keep my stomach to myself. I screamed like a frightened child in the face of terrible things; but am I so very different from that? I am no older than a child need be to still be a child, and this is a terrible thing. Her body is too mangled for me to have hope for; too gone for me to take away from the scene. Her dog is there at her side, somehow untouched, but still dead and coated with the grey of smoke and ash. My buttercup in hand, I do what I can. 

As I walk, not quite sure of what I'm feeling, along a path I have no recollection of, I come to a spot away from the fire and smoke and echoing death that I have caused. I lay her dog down, she said the name was Mary, and dig a hole in the earth into which I place Mary, and the remnants of buttercup... the ones which will flee from my fingers. I cover two deaths, and realize that I have covered many more, and I notice that I have come to a field of buttercups for this. The flowers fill my hands, full grasp, and moments later I drip with the blood of buttercups, innocents; enough to overfill a drinking glass. 

Buttercups are sad little flowers that droop and wilt and die. I have killed buttercups because I am not a gentle soul. I have plucked the flowers from the stems and trampled along the paths they've tried to make, and I have killed. But, I remember my buttercup. And I will bleed the red for all my buttercup had to bleed yellow. 

 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

~Why do you build me up, Buttercup, baby~   
~Just to let me down, and mess me around~   
~And then, worst of all, you never call, baby~   
~When you say you will, but I love you still.~   
~I need you more than anyone, darling,~   
~You know that I have from the start.~   
~So build me up, Buttercup,~   
~Don't break my heart.~ 

Is it such a bad thing to think you're in love? Only a few years after I lost my buttercup to my own stupidity, I've found another. He does not grow in a field, near a tree, but I can clutch him in my still-rough palm with more gentleness than I've ever managed before. 

He is a blonde boy with blue eyes, his stature small like my own. I have not held him in my arms yet, but he looks the part of a perfect fit, though I have no inclination to break him as I've done with so many others. 

I'm not quite sure he knows how I feel, but does it matter since I don't deserve him? He is a friend, but he is busy. As much as I want to live for him while he lives for me, he has other things in his life -- things which I cannot compare to, so I don't bother trying. I don't deserve him, and that is precisely why my heart breaks at his hello. 

~"I'll be over at ten," you told me time and again~   
~But you're late, I wait around and then~   
~I run to the door, I can't take any more~   
~It's not you, you let let me down again~   
~Baby, baby, try to find~   
~A little time and I'll make you happy~   
~I'll be home, I'll be beside the phone~   
~Waiting for you~ 

We make plans and he breaks them, because there are things more important than me. He'll have dreams and he'll chase them, because I am more real than things should get and reality is not a desired effect. There is a hole in my heart where I etched his silhouette. 

He is a kind boy, and I can picture him with flowers. I have seen him delight in the wonders of dogs... I wonder, if he had one, if he might name it Mary. 

I have not killed him, and for that I am grateful. Though, he nearly killed me because of things I was inevitably the cause of, but I didn't die. For some reason, I lived, and I want that to give me hope. 

Hope is a strange word though. Hope is not belief, for belief is black-and-white, straight cut and dried, and cannot change without additional information. Hope is, instead, a flow against belief. 

My belief is that he could not love me. My hope is that he could. Polar opposites, and nearly irony. But, hope would have to achieve something for irony. 

~Why do you build me up, Buttercup, baby~   
~Just to let me down, and mess me around~   
~And then, worst of all, you never call, baby~   
~When you say you will, but I love you still.~   
~I need you more than anyone, darling,~   
~You know that I have from the start.~   
~So build me up, Buttercup,~   
~Don't break my heart.~ 

He tears me like construction paper on dull plastic safety scissors, my edges ripped apart instead of neatly cut. It's a new feeling to bleed this way. But, red, like always. 

I feel like I have always bled, and it is always in colors of warmth. I bleed the red of blood and the yellow of buttercups and the life of innocents. Is it any wonder I always feel cold? 

I am drawn to the warmth, though. I am drawn to it like moths to flame, their death in some cases. I am drawn to death, but have yet been able to realize my journey. 

This blood on my hands stains like buttercups; innocents. 

Yet, I pine for him, knowing that I should run from him before I taint him and pluck his petals and split his stem. It's only a matter of time. Time is of no importance now, anyway. Memories are only what you want to remember. I remember a girl and buttercup she placed in my little hand and the dog I buried that first led her to me and the way I killed her. If I've blocked out the worst, and most painful, perhaps it's best that way. 

~You were my toy, but I could be the boy~   
~You adore if you'd just let me know~   
~Although you're untrue, I'm attracted to you~   
~All the more, why do I need you so?~   
~Baby, baby, try to find~   
~A little time and I'll make you happy~   
~I'll be beside the phone~   
~Waiting for you~ 

I see him with other people I know and avoid, for the most part, because they have not done what I have. They can live their lives with buttercups in hand, and they will not wilt as fast as those flowers do in my hand. Miracles run from people like me. I run from people who could be miracles. 

He is a miracle. He is shining and light and death to me. He shatters me into pieces that are too torn for a smooth repair, and he doesn't even realize. I would tell him, but I fear that my heart would then be beyond repair as so many horrible things are after they are exposed to such goodness. 

But, if someone had to take my life other than me, I'd let it be him, but only if he wouldn't have guilt. If he kills someone, it should be because they are willing to die. He seems to believe in that, and I cannot be happier about it. I am ready for him, ready for his embrace if it could be the first and last. 

~Why do you build me up, Buttercup, baby~   
~Just to let me down, and mess me around~   
~And then, worst of all, you never call, baby~   
~When you say you will, but I love you still.~   
~I need you more than anyone, darling,~   
~You know that I have from the start.~   
~So build me up, Buttercup,~   
~Don't break my heart.~ 

I watch him sit there like a buttercup in the breeze and I yearn to pluck him from his confines of the soft tender grass which surrounds him, but even I do not have the lack of heart required for that. He lends me his heart whenever I am near for it is surely too much for anyone to handle alone. 

Someday, perhaps, I will run away. I will run further than the other side of the universe and I won't come back because that will be best for all of us. I will go into orbit around him and he need never know. I'll be affected by him, but he'll never have to notice me. 

And, yet, space is so far away sometimes -- from him. The memories. The buttercups. 

I can't quite bring myself to admit what I want from him. For all that I've been through, this is probably for the best. I'll just continue to give to him until I've got nothing left to give, and then I'll refuse to take. And, everything will be fine then. Miracles do happen... or so I can hope. 

~I need you more than anyone, baby,~   
~You know that I have from the start~   
~So build me up, Buttercup~   
~Don't break my heart.~


End file.
